Scientific and Technical Expertise

REGULATIONS on Organizing and Conducting Order of the State of Scientific and Technical Expertise

Approved by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus no. 1411 0f October 29, 2007

"On Some Issues of the Organization and Conducting of the State Scientific and Technical Expertise"

CHAPTER I. GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1

These Regulations aredeveloped in accordance with the second part of Article 13 of the Law of January 19, 1993 "On State Science and Technology Policy" (Bulletin of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus, 1993, no. 7, Art. 43; Bulletin of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus , 1997, № 33, art. 657) and determines the organization and the conducting of the state scientific and technical expertise (hereinafter - the expertise).

Article 2

The objects of expertise are:

Projects of the tasks of the state, regional, and branch-wise scientific-technical programs;

the sections of the state support of the state national economic and social programs;

international scientific-technical projects carried out within the international agreements of the Republic of Belarus;

innovation projects financed by the state budget at the expense of funds provided for the scientific, scientific-technical and innovation activities;

research, development and technological works as innovation projects and the work on the organization and development of production of scientific and technical products financed by innovation funds through the Belarusian Innovation Fund.

Article 3

The expertise is a system of actions for analysis and evaluation of parts of programs, projects and activities referred to the paragraph 2 of this Regulation (hereinafter - projects and works), and the preparation of opinions on the reasonability (inexpediency) of their performance and the financing by the national budget.

Article 4

The expertise is conducted by state scientific and technical expert boards (hereinafter - expert boards) established by the State Committee on Science and Technology (hereinafter – the SCST) in priority areas of science and technology activities in the Republic of Belarus.

Article 5

The expert board can include scientists and specialists of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, institutions of higher education, research and development and other organizations, as well as the government, foreign and other specialists.

The chairman, deputy chairman and secretary are determined when establishing the expert boards.

It is not allowed to include the same scientist or a specialist in the compositions of several expert boards.

Renewal of expert boards shall be held not less than once every two years and not less than one-third of their composition.

The compositions of expert boards shall be approved by the Chairman of the SCST.

Article 6

The conducting of the expertise enables to carry out

the analysis and evaluation of:

principal novelty of competitiveness, scientific and technical level, volumes of the financing and the terms of implementation of the submitted projects and activities for the consideration, and their economic efficiency;

compliance of the considered projects and the works in priority areas of scientific and technological activities in the Republic of Belarus;

the country’s needs in the results expected during the performance of the projects and works taking into account the possibility of expanding exports and reducing imports of the products and the delivery of developed and adopted products;

capacities of adoption of the results of the projects and works in production;

scientific, engineering and technological and industrial base, scientific and human resources of the organization-executor of the project or the work including the number of staff proposed for the implementation of the project or the work;

availability of the experience of solution of the problems involved, the previous results of work carried out in the within state programs of fundamental, oriented-fundamental and applied researches as a basis for carrying out the planned research and development works, reasonability of new researches and availability of the necessary material and financial resources for the implementation of projects;

possible social, economic and environmental implications of the implementation of the projects proposed for implementation.

CHAPTER II. ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCTING OF THE EXPERTISE

Article 7

The SCST sends the projects and works in duplicate drawn up in accordance with the requirements to expert boards for the conducting of the expertise.

Article 8

The expert board examines the projects and works within one month from the date of their submission to the SCST. The specified period of the expertise may be extended if is necessary by the expert board in case of necessity in completion of the project materials or the work by its applicant in accordance with the results of the expertise but not more than for two weeks.

Article 9

To conduct the expertise, the expert board involves at least two experts highly qualified in the appropriate field of science and technology on a contract basis.

The employee of the organization-executor of the considered project or work cannot be an expert.

Members of the expert board can be involved in the conducting of the expertise as experts in consultation with the SCST. However, they have the right to conduct the expertise of projects or works considered by both the expert board they are members of, and other expert boards.

Article 10

In accordance with the results of consideration of the projects and the works, the experts shall make expert opinions which are to contain an unequivocal conclusion on reasonability (inexpediency) of their performance and financing at the expense of the national budget.

Article 11

The expert board shall conduct an expertise taking into account the expert opinions and by the secret ballot procedure shall make a decision on the results.

The session of the expert board shall be valid if attended by at least two-thirds of its members.

The decision on the project or the work shall be made by the expert board, if it has been supported by more than half of the expert board members participated in the voting. The members of the expert board who are employees of the organization-executor of the considered work do not take part in the vote. In case of equality of votes, the decision shall be made by the casting vote of the chairman of the expert board.

The projects or works that were both positive and negative assessed by experts, can be sent to the additional expertise to the third expert by the decision of the expert board determined by the expert board.

Article 12

If necessary, the expert board may invite the representatives of the organizations - executors of the considered projects or works to its sessions.

If there are criticisms of the expert board, the organization-executor of the project or work shall remove them within 7 days.

In violation of this period the expert board has a right to return the projects and works in to the SCST without further consideration.

Article 13

The conclusion on the results of the conducted expertise signed by the Chairman and the secretary of the expert board shall be sent to the SCST. The expert opinion shall be drawn up in accordance with the requirements established by the SCST.

Article 14

In case of discrepancy with the results of expertise, the organization-executor of the project or the work has the right to appeal them in SCST. In case of availability of these discrepancies, the SCST shall send the project or work for the reexamination or establish the commission with the participation of representatives of the expert board, the SCST and the government customer. The decision of this commission and the expert board made during the second consideration of projects and works shall be final.

CHAPTER III. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF THE EXPERT BOARD MEMBERS AND EXPERTS

Article 15

The chairman of the expert board:

manages the expert board;

is personally responsible for implementation of the tasks assigned to the expert board;

fixes the date of the sessions of the expert board.

In the absence of the chairman of the expert board his duties shall be performed by his deputy.

Article 16

16. The secretary of the expert board:

conducts the organizational and methodological work for preparation for the expertise

prepares the requests for

submission of additional materials necessary for the expertise in accordance with the application of the experts;

keeps the minutes of sessions of the expert board.

Article 17

The members of the expert board are entitled to:

to request the additional materials necessary for the preparation and the qualified and impartial conclusion in the manner prescribed by the legislation from the secretary of expert board and receive them from the state customers and the organization-executors of the projects and works;

to familiarize themselves with the scientific-technical and industrial base, other resources of the organization-executors of the projects and works in order to determine their suitability for the planned activities;

to advance a special opinion recorded in the minutes of the session of the expert board in case of discrepancy with the decision made by the expert board.

Article 18

The members of the expert board and the experts shall:

comply with the requirements of these Regulations and the legislation of the Republic of Belarus in the area of protection of state secrets;

conduct an unbiased and comprehensive analysis of the projects and works under consideration;

comply with the time limits and the order of implementation of the expertise;

present a reasoned opinion on the considered project or work.

Article 19

Experts violated the order of the expertise shall not be involved for the conducting of the expertise in the future.

Article 20

Experts and members of the expert board may be involved as the working groups established under the SCST for the check of the progress of projects and works, if the expertise of which has been carried out with their direct participation, as well as the acceptance of the results of the projects and works.

Article 21

The order of the financing of expert boards, remuneration to the experts and members of expert boards including its amount taking into account the actual time spent on the expertise and the complexity of the projects shall be determined by the SCST in consultation with Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection.